Green Linden Press

Affinity · skin

Wil · der · ness
old English
wildēornes
land inhabited by
wild
animals
wild dēor
deer

Bagwadakamig
in the
/bagwad/
wild
/akamig/
land
going into
emerging from
some wild
incident
this land

the doe runs faster than giizhig 
clears the clouds, through wheatgrass 
and sagebrush, she runs so hard 
an artery stretches then bursts 
blood spilling into her organs, she runs 
through wetlands until she can’t hear 
anything but her hooves, until she has no 
memory of where she ran from 
the fawn, its mother 
the sound of death
cleaving sky

people who don’t sleep will say that night is day
twisted up, a knot of darkness
in which everything buried unfurls
its raptorial claws
clutching memories
like prey

people who can’t sleep will tell you they have always been
awake, except for some time in an unknown yesterday
when they must have slept through it

people who sleep remember
the dark essence of origin
magic, a falling start
from which we all came
some debris upon
the earth

what wilderness
that once agrestal doe
who birthed no fawns
only antlers protruding
from her asshole
calcified protrusions
she evinced from the fields
of bucks who once mounted her
only to find their own nostrils
filled with bone

disoriented, seemingly alone, in the darkness
all she feels is her own hand reaching towards the trees
their ears and vulvas some primordial
dampness, this deepest of sleeps
from which all life
sprang forth

it is dusk when the doe hits the wall
of human habitation, suburban homes spread
a blight along the hillside, she later learns
how to graze between the fenced yards
and asphalt drives, how to read the direction 
and speed of their cars, but the first few days 
she weeps beneath the power lines
a broken 
land
scape 

at night the cabin shrinks
until the darkness
is inside of her
lifetimes of dismember-
ment at the hands of others
the foul taste of them
cursed, they said, you are cursed
and she was but so was god
in that life where everything
was buried alive
in the middle
world

being proximate to
the doe learns
a new language, one of sibilance
subtle intonations, the doe listens
grazes on domesticated grasses
bound by a periphery of humans
their strange architecture
concrete, metal, giant eyes of glass
as if anything could more solid than
soil, sky, the landscape of 
skin

gichi-aya'aag told stories to remind her
that humankind was not without guidance
two leggeds arrived long after willow, pine
sycamore tendered the sky with oxygen
released from the undulation of leaves

after plants came swimmers then birds
then the humped and furred ones sowed
their medicine, so much bounty
it made some humans angry
why else would they tear things
from the earth, from each other
all around them
a distressed fury

the doe slips farther west
past bad mountain
and all its dead
the doe can hear them 
now that she understands
their language
so many desires
for less and more
what human
is ever satisfied
the doe longs for every blade
of grass, what she bends 
herself into

Aja Couchois Duncan is a social justice coach and capacity builder of Ojibwe, French, and Scottish descent who lives on the ancestral and stolen land of the Coast Miwok people. Her debut collection, Restless Continent (Litmus Press, 2016) was selected by Entropy Magazine as one of the best poetry collections of 2016 and awarded the California Book Award for Poetry in 2017. Her newest book, Vestigial was published by Litmus Press in 2021. When not writing or working, Aja can be found running the west Marin hills with her Australian Cattle Dog Dublin, training with horses, or weaving small pine needle baskets. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and a variety of other degrees and credentials to certify her as human. Great Spirit knew it all along.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2022